Is Your Industry Too Boring for Linkbait? Think Again!

Tyler Banfield, 09-20-2007

I've talked to more than a few web site owners that are convinced the topic of their web site is so boring that it would be impossible to create any type of linkbait or viral content. Although some topics are much easier than others for generating linkbait, the truth is that no matter what topic your web site covers, you can still create at least one great piece of linkbait. The key to accomplishing this is thinking outside the box and figuring out a new and creative way to present some of the information your topic covers. If you still don't believe me, let's take a look at an amazing piece of linkbait from one of the least exciting industries around: dairy.

CheddarVision.tv is the creation of Westcountry Farmhouse Cheesemakers. The beauty of this linkbait is that the web site itself is extremely simple: a single webcam which allows people to watch a lump of cheddar (which has been nicknamed Wedginald) age in real-time.

So, how successful has this web site been? According to a quick check of Yahoo, the web site has gathered over 16,000 links over the last nine months (which has pushed it to the number three position in Google for the term cheddar cheese). Additionally, according to a BBC article, over one and half million people had viewed the web site during the same time period.

In addition to taking an extremely creative approach to a normally boring subject, CheddarVision is a great example of linkbait for two other reasons:

1) Socially Optimized: As you can see from the screenshot, CheddarVision is designed in a way that makes it easy to promote via all of the major social media outlets. From the homepage alone, people can easily share CheddarVision with their friends through the following social media web sites: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Digg, Reddit, Newvine, Del.icio.us and Google Reader. Additionally, the top right corner let's people spread the word by email or sign-up to be informed about updates via email.

2) Drives Traffic to the Desired Homepage: The other thing that I really like about this web site is that it is setup in a manner that it allows it to drive a lot of traffic to the web site it was designed to promote. Because it's on a separate domain, visitors would not necessarily find the web site that it was designed to promote. However, thanks to some clever links (not only do the links at the top of the page lead to the Cheesemakers homepage, but also a red button appears under the television that eventually leads to the homepage), this page is able to send a majority of its visitors to a desired target (where they can be converted into customers).

45n5, 09-20-2007

certainly one of the greatest viral thingies for a usually boring product at the moment is what they did for this blender company